My Facebook Dilemma

Jared,

Totally agree; I struggled with my own separation as well.

I made the choice a long time ago to share very little personal info via FB (as my professional network grew)

Sharing personal info isn't really my bag anyway; however, sharing unique content is...I also know that my closest of friends don't care if my dog is sick, I just mowed my lawn and I have a bad case of the Monday's. (& I'm positive nobody in my professional network cares about that either)

I think what you're doing is a smart, tactful play w/regards to your own self-promotion, personal branding & personal network separation.

Have you had any feedback from your network about this? (Could also be an interesting test to see if your personal/non-industry contacts friend that profile as well)

I am actually surprised this is not more common. It's something I dealt with as soon as I came on board with ResponseLogix as Social Media coordinator. I created a 'professional' FB account and have engaged only professional auto industry people and pages. I think for anyone who works professionally with social media, it's a must. Great topic and insights Jared.

This is funny! I was having this very discussion with my VP last night and decided to go with a second "professional" FB account for the same reasons. I'll be setting that up in the next couple days.

You bring up a good point that is often overlooked. Although family and friends like to know personal information about you, they are usually annoyed by too many Facebook posts about your job. You made a good move by making a second account. I have two as well; one for my personal account and one as the administrator of J&L Marketing. Until Facebook comes up with a better solution, this will likely be the way many people will have to deal with this dilemma. Hopefully, Facebook will take notice and allow people two accounts for reasons like this. Lists might help you sort out friends from co-workers, but everyone would be getting the same news feed.

For now, I wouldn’t worry about getting booted for two accounts. I have a friend with two accounts, and they still haven’t booted her after two years.

Let's face it....Facebook was launched in 2004 as an evolving social network solution where users could add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify those friends about themselves.
Earlier this year I created a second account for personal friendship engagement, and like everyone using Facebook have learned along the way the pitfalls and benefits of using these separate accounts as a communication and branding tool.
Facebook has become a media channel that now operates as both a corporate marketing solution for business entities and a personal digital media solution for friends. The corporate marketing solution we use professionally as vendors and dealerships to build a community of fans for our products within our respective spheres of influence to drive engagement.
The two do not mix.
I did a little research last night….here is an example, one of our industry colleagues recently posted approximately 38 Facebook entries in a 24-hour period, it is not the first time and it will not be the last. There are numerous cases of this, and it is not isolated to just a couple of people.
I know my friends outside of our collective industries have absolutely no interest in which airport location, rental car company, restaurant review, automotive videos and blog links some of our peers like to post.
I also know my industry peers definitely have no interest whatsoever in people who are posting" "baking cakes tonight with friends", “drinking at Bar XYZ” “the dog ate the flowers” or “Mafia Wars”.
The “Hide” “Hide Networked Blogs” and “Remove” buttons will be used if Facebook becomes cluttered with postings that consistently have little relevance to information flow or engagement….I know mine have.
Therefore, the only solution is to have two accounts, the question then is which has priority in your daily work life?

Great post Jared. Facebook was primarily personal for me until about 18 months ago, it was then I decided to make the divide as well. If you are presenting yourself as a professional then it's almost mandatory to separate your profiles, especially those of us that still have friends who - at times - don't comprehend what is "appropriate" for public display. Hehe

Sounds like you went with two profiles vs. a "fan page" as well - I've been having that discussion a lot lately. What are your thoughts?

I think facebook has rules about having only one account per person. You might want to look into that.

@Steve: Yes you are right. What I did is against the facebook terms of service and they may boot me off facebook for it. If so oh well, right now I think its best.

@ Stephanie, yea ive now got two profiles and we have a DrivingSales.com fanpage. The thing for me is that the fanpage and my profiles really are very different things. The fanpage is for drivingsales as a community, as its own identity to act as a fan page was meant to .

My personal "jared" profile will be for me to share my non automotive life with my non automotive friends and my business profile will be for me to talk car business stuff for car business people. Its been a pain to manage and I havnt been as active on facebook as I should lately. Partly because its becoming somewhat of a hassle. I need to get out of that mindset and "get over it."

Its a great tool, I love it for both personal and professional reasons, I just wish it was easier to keep those parts of my life separate without my two profile fix.

This is definitely a common problem Jared and one I struggle with. And it's not just about what I post but also about what I read. Frankly I have so many Fan Pages that I "like" that I rarely even seen posts by my friends and family. I've contemplated splitting my profile but have instead opted for the list option. Not exactly working as I'd like but I hope Facebook makes a change soon (and one I'm all in favor of).